Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Open information space'

This project demonstrates the construction of a land planning geographic information system (GIS) for Tarrant County, and explores how the technology could be used to select sites for a county wide open space preservation plan. As Texas' Tarrant County continues to undergo rapid change due to growth and expansion, the need for proactive, resourceful community planning is greater than ever. One crucial issue facing the region is how to preserve open areas that serve the county's citizens' ecological, recreational, cultural and economic needs. In order to assess how much open space is needed and which sites should be considered for special attention, large amounts of varied spatial information must be analyzed. The answer to effectively dealing with such data sets is a geographic information system (GIS) that stores all pertinent data digitally and allows for its manipulation through use of a computer software package. This project demonstrates the construction of a land planning GIS for Tarrant County, and explores how the technology could be used to select sites for a county wide open space preservation plan.

This Master’s Professional Project is focused on the development of a draft Vegetation Management Plan for the City of San Luis Obispo Open Space properties. The purpose of the plan is to provide a comprehensive document which identifies how the city is addressing wildfire preparedness in city-owned open space properties. Methods used in plan development include a literature review, content analysis, geographic information systems (GIS), a course audit, and consultation with city staff and other stakeholders. Each open space property is identified in the plan, describing its location, vegetation, topography, assets, access points, water supply, evacuation routes, historical fire data, predominant risk exposure, current wildfire preparedness plan, priority ranking, and a proposed implementation plan.

The Hedonic Valuation Method (HVM) was used to estimate the relationship between housing values, open space amenities, and non-residential land uses in the Tucson Urban Area. Using a Geographic Information System, it was possible to estimate a Benchmark Model that incorporated a wide range of open space amenity and land use variables and a complete enumeration of census blocks. Eight alternative model specifications were estimated with: rental values excluded, fewer open space and land use variables, land use data aggregated at different levels of census geography, and incrementally smaller sample sizes. Statistical and economic comparisons between the Benchmark and alternative models included: R² values, standard errors, F-tests, and the magnitude and stability of both marginal implicit prices and housing value elasticities. Results indicate that the exclusion of open space amenity variables, the use of different levels of census geography to aggregate land use data, and the use of samples of census blocks, all have the potential to reduce the quality of HVM estimates.

Information retrieval aims to extract from a large collection of data a subset of information that is relevant to user’s needs. In this study, we are interested in information retrieval in Arabic-Language text documents. We focus on the Arabic language, its morphological features that potentially impact the implementation and performance of an information retrieval system and its unique characters that are absent in the Latin alphabet and require specialized approaches. Specifically, we report on the design, implementation and evaluation of the search functionality using the Vector Space Model with several weighting schemes. Our implementation uses the ISRI stemming algorithms as the underlying stemming technique and the general Arabic stop word list for building inverted indices for Arabic-language documents. We evaluate our implementation on a corpus consisting of selected technical papers published in Arabic-language journals. We use the Open Journal Systems (OJS) from the Public Knowledge Project as a repository for the corpus used in the evaluation. We evaluate the performance of our implementation of the search using a classic recall/precision approach and compare it to one of the default multilingual search functions supported in the OJS. Our experimental analysis suggests that stemming is an effective technique for searches in Arabic-language texts that improves the quality of the information retrieval system.

Problem solving for location is one of the most critical cognitive skills that can be utilized in deriving a naive location and/or finding a primed location in large open spaces of the built environment. Wayfinding or locating objects in large open spaces is not often easy for individuals due their limitations in building effective mental models of the open space or their lack of a correct procedure for determining the grid coordinates of an object within that space. With the success of the global positioning system (GPS) in providing location information, it is expected that this technology could be utilized to control and improve building construction and facility management productivity within building interior spaces as well. However, GPS cannot perform robustly inside buildings due to the exterior walls or roofs, which weaken the signal. The Cricket indoor location support technology has been developed to respond to this limitation. Cricket uses a combination of radio frequency (RF), ultrasonic sound signals, and the triangular rule to calculate a user's current location. This research investigated performances within the context of a work order system between a human-based system and a computer-based system. Thirty subjects participated in this study. The subjects were asked to derive, find and verify a target box's location. Locating time-on-task, accuracy, and attitudes were measured. The overwhelming results demonstrated the speed and accuracy of the computer-based system over the human-based system. In addition to longer procedural processing times, subject errors included: 1) an incorrect estimation of distance, 2) an inability to correctly locate and/or project the X-axis and Y-axis grid lines, and 3) an incorrect treatment of the positive and negative characteristics of these coordinates. Even though half of the subjects liked the human-based system more, they significantly believe the computer-based system to be more accurate. All but one subject preferred that the computer-based system be used in his or her own future business. Finally, results indicate that the computer-based system does relieve humans of cognitive dependency, which may be further evidence that the computer-based system developed and tested in this study achieved its purpose.

O uso de vasto material cartográfico, como fotografias aéreas dos anos de 1962, 1972, 1978, 1995 e 2000, levantamento planialtimétrico cadastral, georreferenciado a uma rede cadastral, carta geológica e pedológica do Município, Legislação Federal, Estadual e Municipal e com o apoio do software Spring, possibilitou estudar a evolução de uma região representada pelos Bairros Santa Teresinha, Vila Sônia e Parque Piracicaba, todos do Município de Piracicaba, SP, apresentava características rurais até meados de 1960, quando passou a ter suas terras loteadas e transformadas em área urbana. Sendo um dos vetores de crescimento do Município, a velocidade com que as áreas foram modificadas foi bastante grande e em pouco tempo o que era rural passou a ter problemas de grandes cidades. Inúmeros loteamentos de formas e padrões variados foram aparecendo e a urbanização foi realizada sem obedecer a nenhum critério técnico, exceto as leis vigentes. A implantação de loteamentos de interesse social contribuiu para o grande adensamento de lotes na área. Quanto às áreas destinadas ao lazer da população, quase todas foram implantadas segundo a legislação vigente na época da aprovação de projeto, porém, como não houve uma severa fiscalização por parte de poder público e pelos moradores, do total de áreas destinadas a sistema de lazer, apenas 22,3% estão disponíveis para uso e 37,07% foram utilizadas indevidamente. O uso indevido constituiu na construção de centros comunitários, unidades de saúde, escolas e principalmente invasões, sendo estas últimas transformadas em favelas o que piorou ainda mais as condições de lazer existentes no local. Analisando as áreas de sistema de lazer, quanto à classificação, foram aplicadas duas metodologias distintas, sendo selecionadas pelo fato de ser a mais citada pela literatura (Jantzen) e outra por ter sido proposta no Plano Diretor de Desenvolvimento de Piracicaba (PDD) e os resultados, no caso de Jantzen, trazem uma discordância entre os costumes brasileiros e legislação vigente. No caso do proposto no PDD, um pouco mais próxima aos costumes de nosso país, porém apresenta alguns problemas de ordem técnica. As áreas de preservação permanente referentes a drenos intermitentes, existentes na área estudada, foram praticamente ignoradas, até a atualidade, tendo sido quase toda aterrada para a locação de lotes. A população passou de 1.130 habitantes a 38.850 habitantes em um prazo de 40 anos e a densidade populacional apresenta grandes concentrações, em várias partes da área em estudo, principalmente no Bairro Vila Sônia, que chega a apresenta densidade de 361hab/ha, maior que a de alguns bairros da região central do Município de São Paulo. Os índices de áreas verdes encontrados estão bastante aquém do exigido por vários autores, porém semelhantes a muitos municípios onde foram aplicados os cálculos seguindo a mesma metodologia. Com os dados levantados, elaboraram-se propostas para a ocupação do solo das áreas peri-urbanas, quanto à locação de novos parques e à proteção de áreas de preservação permanente. Na área já urbanizada, realizou-se proposta de prioridade na implantação de sistemas de lazer.
The use of vast cartographic material, as aerial pictures of the years of 1962, 1972, 1978, 1995 and 2000, rising cadastral planialtimétrico, georreferenciado to a cadastral net, geological and pedologic letter of the Municipal district, Federal Legislation, State and Municipal and with the support of the software Spring, made possible to study the evolution of an area represented by the neighborhood Santa Teresinha, Vila Sônia and Parque Piracicaba, all of the Municipal district of Piracicaba, SP, presented rural characteristics even middles of 1960, when he/she started to have your lotted lands and transformed in urban area. Being one of the vectors of growth of the Municipal district, the speed with that the areas were modified it was quite big and in little time that was rural he/she started to have problems of great cities. Countless divisions into lots in ways and varied patterns went appearing and the urbanization was accomplished without obeying her/it any technical criterion, except the effective laws. The implantation of divisions into lots of social interest contributed to the great adensamento of lots in the area. With relationship to the areas destined to the leisure of the population, almost all were implanted at that time according to the effective legislation of the project approval, however, as there was not a severe fiscalization on the part of being able to public and for the residents, of the total of areas destined to leisure system, 22,3% are only available for use and 37,07% were used improperly. The improper use constituted in the construction of community centers, units of health, schools and mainly invasions, being these last ones transformed at slums that it still worsened more the existent leisure conditions in the place. Analyzing the areas of leisure system, with relationship to the classification, they were applied two different methodologies, being selected by the fact of being the more mentioned by the literature (Jantzen) and other for it being proposed in the master plan of Development of Piracicaba (PDD) and the results, in the case of Jantzen, bring a disagreement between the Brazilian habits and effective legislation. In the case of the proposed in PDD, a little closer to the habits of our country, however it presents some problems of technical order. The areas of permanent preservation referring to intermittent drains, existent in the studied area, they were practically unknown, until the present time, having been almost all terrified for the lease of lots. The population passed from 1.130 inhabitants to 38.850 inhabitants in one period of 40 years and the population density presents great concentrations, in several parts of the area in study, mainly in the neighborhood Vila Sônia, that arrives her it presents density of 361hab/ha, larger than the one of some neighborhoods of the central area of the Municipal district of São Paulo. The indexes of green areas found are quite on this side of the demanded by several authors, however similar to many municipal districts where were applied the calculations following the same methodology. With the lifted up data, proposals were elaborated for the occupation of the soil of the peri-urban areas, with relationship to the lease of new parks and the protection of areas of permanent preservation. In the area already urbanized, he/she took place priority proposal in the implantation of leisure systems.

Este projeto é um ensaio para se estabelecer um processo de análise da relação entre parcelamento do solo e volumetria construída intraquadra do município de São Paulo, utilizando a base de dados da pesquisa Os Sistemas de Espaços Livres na Constituição da Forma Urbana Contemporânea no Brasil: Produção e Apropriação QUAPÁ-Sel II, desenvolvido pelo Laboratório QUAPÁ da FAU USP, com as informações de temperatura aparente de superfície existente em três estações do ano, outono, inverno e primavera. No intuito de estabelecer uma metodologia que possa ser replicável em outras localidades, o trabalho ora apresentado, utilizando-se desta base de dados e com imagens de sensores remotos, busca identificar as possíveis similaridades entre as classes trabalhadas e a sua temperatura aparente de superfície e como isso pode influenciar a temperatura do ar e o conforto térmico das pessoas no nível do cânion urbano.
This project is an essay to establish a process of analysis of the relation between division of land and intraquadra built volumetry of Sao Paulo city, using the database of the research The Open Spaces Systems in the Brazilian Urban Form Constitution: Production and Appropriation QUAPÁ-Sel II developed by the QUAPÁ Laboratory at FAU USP, with the information of the apparent surface temperature existent in three seasons, fall, winter and spring. In order to establish a methodology that can be replicated in other places, the work presented here, using this database and remote sensing images, seeks to identify possible similarities between the worked classes and their apparent surface temperature and how this may influence the air temperature and the thermal comfort of people in the urban canyon level.

Magister Scientiae (Biodiversity and Conservation Biology)
This thesis looks at aspects relating to vegetated open space in the quaternary catchment of the Lourens River, Cape Town, South Africa in 2005 and at GoogleEarth as a source of imagery for research. The research questions were: “Is GoogleEarth a suitable source of imagery for spatial analysis of landscapes?”; “What was the potential access (proximity) to vegetated open space of at least 900 m2 in the Lourens River quaternary catchment in 2005?”; “How many vegetated open spaces with an area of at least 900 m2 were present in the Lourens River quaternary catchment in 2005?” and “What spaces within the urban edge in the Lourens River quaternary catchment can be said to have some protection from development?” Open space has multiple benefits for humans in terms of health and social interaction.In urban areas, it is also important for biodiversity conservation. In Cape Town, this is critical since the city has critically endangered national vegetation types that only occur within its boundaries and 319 IUCN Red List species within its boundaries.Proximity does not reflect use of open space which is affected by the size of the open space, quality of the open space, neighbourhood attributes and individual and collective perceptions of the open space. Quality of vegetated open space is dependent on its facilities and maintenance which are largely determined by its management. In Cape Town, open space management is mainly mowing/brush cutting all spaces which has a negative impact on biodiversity retention. Mowing is continued because of popular demand so action needs to be taken to change popular perceptions.Google Earth is readily available and widely used. It is used for research in diverse disciplines. Local Internet connection problems complicated this study. Alignment and projection problems were encountered in this study. Thus Google Earth geospatial issues make it a poor choice of imagery source for large scale spatial analysis of landscapes.Open space was digitized in Google Earth and transferred to a propriety GIS for editing. Vegetated spaces with a minimum of 900 m2 and a width of at least 15 m were selected from the approximately 1025 digitised spaces. Google Earth imagery was used because it is readily available. Euclidean distances of 300 m, 500 m, 800 m and 900 m (taken from literature) were used to buffer the digitized vegetated open spaces and other data on schools, train stations, bus routes and taxi routes in and within 900 m of the catchment. Buffer analysis was carried out. Data from the City of Cape Town and a schools layer were used to determine the number of cemeteries,community parks, nature reserves and school grounds – space regarded as having some protection from development - within the urban edge of the city and what area they covered.Within or partially within the Lourens River quaternary catchment, 593 vegetated open spaces of at least 900 m2 were identified. The analysis showed that only two houses were beyond 300 m from a vegetated open space. There was vegetated open space within 300 m of all the schools, stations, bus and taxi routes within the catchment and in close proximity to the catchment. Within the urban edge, only 124 spaces were found to be protected, of which only one was a nature reserve.Most of the open spaces are not formally designated as open space and are vulnerable to development. Much development has taken place since 2005 in the Lourens River quaternary catchment so action is needed to ensure proximity to vegetated open space remains a positive feature of the area.Expanding the present research to cover a larger area would provide additional baseline data. Further research could consider the loss of open space over time and the impact of management on the quality of designated open space.

abstract: This doctoral dissertation research aims to develop a comprehensive definition of urban open spaces and to determine the extent of environmental, social and economic impacts of open spaces on cities and the people living there. The approach I take to define urban open space is to apply fuzzy set theory to conceptualize the physical characteristics of open spaces. In addition, a 'W-green index' is developed to quantify the scope of greenness in urban open spaces. Finally, I characterize the environmental impact of open spaces' greenness on the surface temperature, explore the social benefits through observing recreation and relaxation, and identify the relationship between housing price and open space be creating a hedonic model on nearby housing to quantify the economic impact. Fuzzy open space mapping helps to investigate the landscape characteristics of existing-recognized open spaces as well as other areas that can serve as open spaces. Research findings indicated that two fuzzy open space values are effective to the variability in different land-use types and between arid and humid cities. W-Green index quantifies the greenness for various types of open spaces. Most parks in Tempe, Arizona are grass-dominant with higher W-Green index, while natural landscapes are shrub-dominant with lower index. W-Green index has the advantage to explain vegetation composition and structural characteristics in open spaces. The outputs of comprehensive analyses show that the different qualities and types of open spaces, including size, greenness, equipment (facility), and surrounding areas, have different patterns in the reduction of surface temperature and the number of physical activities. The variance in housing prices through the distance to park was, however, not clear in this research. This dissertation project provides better insight into how to describe, plan, and prioritize the functions and types of urban open spaces need for sustainable living. This project builds a comprehensive framework for analyzing urban open spaces in an arid city. This dissertation helps expand the view for urban environment and play a key role in establishing a strategy and finding decision-makings.
Dissertation/Thesis
Ph.D. Geography 2011

This thesis presents flott, the Fast Low Memory T-Transform, the currently fastest and most memory efficient linear time and space algorithm available to compute the string complexity measure T-complexity. The flott algorithm uses 64.3% less memory and in our experiments runs asymptotically 20% faster than its predecessor. A full C-implementation is provided and published under the Apache Licence 2.0. From the flott algorithm two deterministic information measures are derived and applied to Android app store security. The derived measures are the normalized T-complexity distance and the instantaneous T-complexity rate which are used to detect, locate, and visualize unusual information changes in Android applications. The information measures introduced present a novel, scalable approach to assist with the detection of malware in app stores.
Graduate

The aim of this thesis is to analyse and interpret the existent and future needs of the people and environment of the mission station, Kwasizabantu,to ensure settlement growth that will enhance the social, economical and environmental aspects of the settlement. This will result in a development framework of the whole site, a master plan for the lifespan of the settlement and detailed design of the heart of the settlement.
Dissertation (ML(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2009.
Architecture
unrestricted

MENVSC
Department of Geography and Geo-Information Sciences
This is a case study research that focuses on the assessment of the impacts of land use changes on the Duthuni wetland ecosystem in Limpopo Province using geospatial techniques and Social Survey. SPOT 4 satellite images which covered the time frame between 1999, 2005 to 2012, were used. The unit of analysis included different institutions such as the local municipality, farmers, the heads of the households and Chief of the Village. In this study, different methods of sampling were used in different context for selecting participants and for sample size determination. The different instruments for data collection included the questionnaires, interviews, focus group interviews and documents review. Socio-economic survey and review of documents were carried out to understand historical trends, collect ground truth and other secondary information required. Data collected from the survey were captured and analysed using the Statistical Package for Scientific Solutions (SPSS). For quantitative analysis, Chi-Square and cross tabulation were employed in SPSS. Analysis of satellite imagery was accomplished through integrated use of ERDAS Imagine (version 2015) and ArcGIS (version 10.1) software package. The themes were identified and analysed using the content analysis based on the main research topics. The results show that the land use/ cover changes have occurred at an unprecedented rate over the years 1999 to 2012. From the year 1999 to the year 2012, the total land use/ cover conversions equal to 299.984 ha of land. The trend and spatial extent of land use/ cover changes had undergone considerable changes over the years in the study period. The major contributing factors included population increase, expansion of agriculture and lack of space to settle. The residential area was found to be the major factor contributing to land use change over the years with an increase of (102.87ha.). People residing in Duthuni village especially along the wetland ecosystem consist of the majority of female-headed households. There is no proper facilitation and mentoring in the village by the government in order to resolve social problems when it comes to land use change. Water pollution and soil erosion were found to be the major concern by wetland users such as farmers and residents. Lack of knowledge has also been identified as one of the driving factors of environmental impacts of land use change in the area. Food was the most resources with 41% which the community gets from the wetland.